MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

5/15 Transactions & Iowa update

The Cubs signed pitcher Mike MacDougal to a Minor League deal, he was assigned to Triple-A Iowa and had a shaky debut. MacDougal, 35, was released by the Dodgers after compiling a 7.94 ERA in seven appearances. He has 71 saves in his 12-year career. The Iowa Cubs also placed infielder Jonathan Mota on the disabled list with a sore right elbow. Mota had to leave Saturday’s game in the middle of an at-bat after aggravating the injury. He was batting .235 in seven games.

MacDougal walked in two runs in his two-thirds of an inning of work in Iowa’s 9-4 loss to Sacramento on Tuesday. Randy Wells struck out six but also gave up seven runs on eight hits and three walks over five innings to take the loss. Anthony Rizzo led the offense, going 3-for-4 and finishing a double shy of the cycle. He hit his 13th homer of the season in the first, and now has 37 RBIs, tops in the Pacific Coast League.

* The Cubs also acquired Minor League left-handed pitcher Hunter Cervenka from Boston as the player to be named to complete the Marlon Byrd-Michael Bowden trade. Cervenka, 22, was originally selected by the Red Sox in the 27th round of the 2008 Draft out of Sterling High School in Baytown, Texas. Cervenka is 0-3 with an 8.04 ERA (14 ER/15 2/3 IP) in nine relief appearances for Class A Greenville this season. He has 24 strikeouts in 15 2/3 innings, an average of 13.8 strikeouts per nine innings, and has limited left-handed hitters to a .188 batting average. Cervanka has a 1.59 ERA (1 ER/5 2/3 IP) in three relief appearances this month after an 11.70 ERA in April. He will report to Class A Peoria.

Because Reed is your perfect 4-5th outfielder… excellent fielder and has been clutch recently as a pinch-hitter. DeWitt is a poor fielder and was very poor as a pinch-hitter. To answer your question Peter, DeWitt has little future.

Easily agree with hustlelikeREED. DeWitt was at one time a PROMISING hitter yet he has never been known to excel at either fielding or hitting and found himself a man without a position. In fact the only postion that he could have challenged for some playing time was left field and the Cubs are obviously stuck with the servicable but dissapointing Soriano so now DeWitt finds himself back in the minors as an “emergency” call up. Strike that, he could have challenged Baker and Mather for a bench spot as all three are of the same ilk, that being “warm bodies” although I think Mather has the edge on all three as far as versatility. Strike THAT DeWitt could have challenged Marmol for closer!!! :)

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